Hospice of Cincinnati unveils new hospice care unit
Hospice of Cincinnati has opened a new inpatient unit at The Christ Hospital.
The hospital is located in Mount Auburn, Ohio, with the new inpatient unit featuring 10 patient beds, a chapel and a family gathering area.
The hospice center will allow for a smoother transition to hospice care among eligible inpatients and emergency patients, as well as home and community referrals, according to Gayle Mattson, president and CEO of Hospice of Cincinnati/HOC Navigators.
“This is a tremendous opportunity to offer skilled hospital care to patients who are too frail or unstable to transfer to another location,” Mattson said in a news release. “The unit at The Christ Hospital is an extension of our mission to provide the best possible and most meaningful end-of-life care to our community.”
The hospital-based hospice unit marks the fifth hospice facility at Hospice of Cincinnati. The hospice provider launched the center in partnership with The Christ Hospital Health Network. The health system operates two hospitals, five ambulatory outpatient clinics and dozens of clinics.
Hospice of Cincinnati/HOC Navigators staff will provide hospice care at the center. Founded in 1977, Hospice of Cincinnati provides hospice, palliative care, bereavement support and advanced care planning education services.
“We are honored to partner with the Hospice of Cincinnati team to offer these very important and important services on-site at the hospital's main campus to ease the burden on families and patients during a very sensitive and stressful time,” Debbie O Hayes, president and CEO of The Christ Hospital Health Network said. “Improving the health of our community is our mission at all stages of a patient's life journey. A partnership with Hospice of Cincinnati strengthens our ability to accomplish this mission.”
Adventist Health Relaunches Hospice Services in Select California Markets
Adventist Health has restarted hospice and home services in two counties in its state.
The California-based nonprofit health system temporarily suspended those services at a location serving Paradise and Butte counties after the area experienced a devastating wildfire in 2018. Dubbed the Camp Fire, its damage spread to nearly 154,400 acres and destroyed nearly 95% of construction in Paradise and Concow cities.
The health system is rebuilding structurally and operationally to continue to provide care and resources to these distressed communities amid critical and growing demand, according to Jessica Smith, community liaison at Adventist Health.
“It's taking some time to re-staff and rebuild the quality of care we've had for this region,” Smith said. local news. “Our level of care is a priority for us. Making sure we have physical therapy, an RN, volunteers and home health aides readily available for the Paradise and Butte County areas has been key to restoring services here.”
The Adventist Health Feather River facility began accepting referrals for new home care and hospice patients in January. Services at the site include home health, hospice and palliative care, as well as behavioral health, oncology, primary care, nephrology, laboratory services and medical imaging.
The health system's philanthropic arm, Adventist Health Feather River Health Foundation, helped fuel $2.4 million in recent renovations to the clinic in an effort to increase clinical capacity and patient access to more services along its continuum, including health of the women.
Adventist Health's service area spans more than 90 communities along the West Coast of California, Hawaii and Oregon. The nonprofit health system provides hospice, palliative, primary and pediatric care, along with behavioral health, emergency and critical care services, among others.
Chippewa County Department of Health at Shutter Hospice Services
Michigan-based Chippewa County Health Department recently announced it will end home health and hospice services at the end of 2024.
The county hospital agency cited rising staffing costs and reimbursement pressures as the main reasons.
The ability to pay salaries for nurses, social workers and home and hospice health aides has been challenged by delayed reimbursement rates, according to Karen Senkus, health officer for the Chippewa County Health Department. Clinical competence was a difficult feat to balance, Senkus said.
“There have been changes in the eligibility of the patients you can get into these programs, how a facility is reimbursed, depending on the number and type of visits, things have changed a lot,” Senkus said. local news. “We still have some home health patients on our caseload. We take patients as we are able to provide the service.”
The Chippewa County Health Department has provided facility-based and community-based home health and hospice services through EUP Home Health & Hospice. Founded more than 70 years ago, the home health and hospice provider offers care in 15 cities in the Michigan-based county.
Other health care providers in the area will step in to ensure continued access to home health and hospice among the community, according to Senkus. These include, but are not limited to, the Residential Healthcare Group.
Flambeau Home Health and Hospice Care is closing its nursing facility
Flambeau Home Health and Hospice Care recently closed its nursing facility.
The Wisconsin-based nonprofit home health and hospice provider is part of the Marshfield Clinic Health System. Flambeau Home Health and Hospice Care is operated out of Marshfield Medical Center in Park Falls, Wisconsin.
Multifaceted reasons led to the closure, including the challenges of providing rural health care, according to Jeffrey Starck, senior public relations specialist at Marshfield Medical Center. Rural-based providers face greater impacts from staffing shortages and rising labor and operating costs in today's current reimbursement, he said.
“The decisions we've made and the dramatic situation in the Chippewa Valley, where two hospitals and 19 clinics will soon close, demonstrate the fragile state of health care across rural Wisconsin,” Starck said. local news.
The decision to stop home health and hospice services was also fueled by the lingering effects of the pandemic's “storm” of health care challenges, he added.
Marshfield Medical Center will continue to provide a number of other health care services to the community, according to Stark. The health system has begun reaching out to other home health and hospice providers to ensure continued access for patients and families.
“We are proud members of the community and while some of the services we offer are changing, we continue to provide primary care, specialist and hospital care throughout the region,” said Stark.
